Collateral Damage
by Scarletstar20
Summary: Bullets in the Mojave are rarely well aimed. Sooner or later, the innocent get hurt. They obliterated my past, and destroyed his future. Now it's up to the two of us to pick up the pieces.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's__ Note: Welcome to Collateral Damage: A Fallout New Vegas Fanfic! I have been trying to write this fic for a long time and have numerous discarded tries littering my desktop. This decided to pop out of my head while I was taking a break from my Dragon Age: Origins fic, and is apparently much darker than I originally intended it to be. The rating will probably be upped to M at some point for violence, adult situations and drug use. I am shooting for 7 (lucky 7) chapters. I hope you enjoy! Please review if you have the time and inclination._

_Discliamer: If I owned the fallout franchise, I'd have a lot more money than I do now. But I don't. This is written for fun and I don't make any kind of cash payout. sigh._

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><p>Colatteral Damage<p>

Chapter 1:

_The lip of the gun kissed my forehead. This wasn't how I pictured this, exactly, but it was a relief to know Boone would be doing it. No matter how angry he might be at whomever was on the other side of that barrel, Boone dealt in clean kills. One bullet and I'd be done, for good this time. It would be unfair to my intuition to say that I hadn't seen this coming. Fuck, It'd happened once already. Destiny, fate or something like the fucked up bullshit the so-called gypsies were trying to sell several hundred feet below us in New Vegas. There was a shuffle behind him, resistance to the idea of blowing my head to kingdom come. Neither of us paid that no mind. These things always happen too fast to stop anyways. This here was between the four of us: Me, Boone, the gun and the bullet. Still, as I glanced up at him, fury etched in that usually impassive face, I had to ask. Maybe it wasn't too smart considering all he'd been through and the position I was in, but it would be kinder to let curiosity kill this cat. Curiosity was how I ended up with the gun in my face in the first place._

"_You gonna pull that trigger, Boone? You gonna end me face to face like this? Seems mighty personal for a sniper. Distance. Isn't that what the stuffed shirts in the NCR teach you?" _

_He said nothing, did nothing, and I was getting tired of waiting._

"_You know what?" I picked up Maria on the floor beside me. "Maybe I'll do you a favor." _

_I expected him to fire then, or hell, any fucking time in between, but he didn't. All he did was watch. He watched as a wrapped my lips around the barrel; pulled Maria into my mouth, tasting gunpowder and grease. _

_His eyebrows went up. His hold on the gun wavered._

_But he watched me pull the trigger anyway._

* * *

><p>Some months ealier...<p>

He didn't understand why Manny hadn't just shot him. He was a sniper, in a snipers nest. His job was to shoot enemies that got too near, not capture a fucking legion fumentarii and drag him into the heart of fucking Novac. He'd only gone off shift a few hours ago. Manny was grinning like a fool. The man, boy really, had been stripped of his helmet, wrap and sunglasses. Christ, the kid couldn't be more than 17. What did Manny expect him to do except kill him? He'd gladly shoot dead any legionnaire Manny put in front of him, but torture? Pointless. Legion never talked anyways.

A demure knock on the door stopped whatever they had been planning to do.

"Expecting someone else?" He asked.

Fine by him. He was off the clock, and if Manny wasn't going to let him shoot the guy, there was nothing for him to do here. He cracked the door open, expecting Andy or Doc Ada, but was greeted by an unfamiliar face. A woman with so much dirt and dust covering her that he could barely tell that much.

"'scuse me. I believe you boys have something of mine in there." Her voice was low and tired and sounded very much like how Boone felt. He made to close door, only to find a shotgun barrel stopping him.

"Listen, that's my slug you have in that boy's leg. I've been chasing that damn fumentarii all fucking night. So you'll understand if I'll want to kick up a ruckus about two small town boys killing my quarry before I get a chance to ask him my questions."

A bounty hunter? The NCR didn't have a bounty on anyone in the legion as far as he knew, and what kind of bounty hunter wanted to ask questions?

She lowered her weapon. "I understand if you aren't keen on trusting a girl straight out of the wastes. But this is important. I'm sure you both have guns in there; you have my permission to shoot me if I cause you any trouble."

What kind of person give someone permission to kill them? Still, this was Manny's mess. Let him sort it out. He almost smiled at the way Manny's eyes peeled open when he let her in. For her part, she didn't even spare him a glance, just walked on by and sat in the chair in front of the boy.

There was no flicker of recognition, no waver in countenance as she sat down. Boone's hands were on the door, but he didn't move. He couldn't stop watching her.

"Look, I know what you want, and lucky for you I've been through this song and dance too much lately to try to persuade you otherwise, so I'm willing to give it to you. There's a catch though." She looked down at her gun thoughtfully before looking back up at him. "I have a few of questions. Aww now, don't be like that." She'd apparently seen some change Boone missed. Even Manny was silent. "It's not about troop movements or how to get into The Fort or any of that crap. That don't do me a lick of good. This is about you and me. I have three questions. You answer them proper, I give you what you want. Deal?"

She didn't stop to let anyone contradict her.

"You scouting Novac or me?" He said nothing. "Okay, let's put it in terms that you tiny legion brain can understand. Answer yes or no. Were you following me?"

Boone was about to tell her it was a waste of time, when to everyone's surprise the boy let out a low "Yes."

"Did he tell you to follow me?"

Who was he, exactly?

"Yes."

"Shit." the woman muttered. She ran her hand through her dirty hair.

"The other one, the one I shot dead. Was he it? Were you two it?"

"Yes."

"Then the other four were for Novac. Where are they, then? Where is the rest of the scum hiding out?"

"You said thre-"

"Oh, we know you'll talk already, whore. Now we're negotiating price. This one's it. Cross my heart."

She made a motion over her chest.

"The other side of the green lizard, by the rocks. They'll come out after nightfall."

"I believe you. You've done good, kid." Before either man could stop her, she fired the shotgun point blank in his face. The chair flew backwards and headless body flopped forward against the floor, oozing blood. "Whoa! What the-" Manny shouted inadvertently, mouth opening and closing rapidly in shock. Boone didn't know what to say. He seen it before, and this was a legion bastard. There was nothing to say.

"I'm sorry," she shrugged, "We had a deal, and I'm one of those god awful honest sorts. But that information was what you were after, right? Hate to think I'd let you boys down." There was no answer from either of them. She frowned. The knitting of her forehead making her eyebrows visible against the dirt.

"We done here?" Her finger was still sitting pretty on the trigger of her gun. It was then Boone realized he and Manny were blocking the only exit. Manny still seemed to have problems recovering his mental faculties. She had shocked the shit out of a hardened solider who had the balls to grow up in North Vegas and not die. That was an achievement.

He looked at her a little longer, but there was still nothing remarkable. Her hair and face we the same color, the dusty brown and tan of the waste. Not a military marking or tribe symbol on her.

A regular wanderer.

The part of him that had served the NCR didn't quite believe that. But he wasn't a solider anymore. And there wasn't anything wrong with shooting Legion Manny had been too stupid to kill.

"Yeah, we're done."

He didn't stop to worry about her as they both walked out and he turned his back on the makeshift prison. He was tired, and had lost too much sleep to this already. By the evening, she had disappeared.

Ranger Andy and his friends up at Charlie had managed to find someone to act the info she had squeezed from the legionnaire, which turned out to be good, surprisingly. He had almost forgotten about her completely, consumed with his own 'project', when she showed up again out of the blue a week later, accidently bumping into him as he went on shift. It was the shotgun he recognized first, a unique mark on the barrel caught his eye as she said, "Sorry, Boone" sheepishly. As if she'd known him all her life. He stopped at the stairs of Dinky and watched her as she chatted up Andy in front of his bunglow. Taking his time, he looked at her, really looked. Even clean, there were no markings that revealed her loyalty to anyone, although she spoke to Ranger Andy like he was an old friend. Clean, her hair was blond and she was wearing doctors fatigues rather than the leather duster she was wearing when they met. He also noticed that she was what some would consider pretty. Didn't hold a candle to his Carla, but all the same. He was so busy studying her that he didn't see Manny coming down the stairs.

"Boone, man, what you looking at?" He laughed, following his line of sight. "Oh! Phade's back! Phade!" Boone looked up at Manny as he waved, they were practically chest to chest. Manny seemed to notice a second later, backing up to give Boone space suddenly, cheeks looking suspiciously sunburned. He shouldered past him, but her voice followed him into Dinky.

"Manny! Hey, I took care of your problem! We have a deal, or what?"

It was a quiet night a couple of days later when Boone found himself thinking about her. She seemed to be sticking around this time. He heard of her exploits each time he walked into Jeannie May's for dinner; she drove off the Nightkin who were harassing the McBrides. found the butchered remains of Andy's Charlie friends left by the Leigon and managed to track them for three days,eliminating a legion slave camp along the way, but couldn't find the lone female survivor. According to Jeannie May, the 'poor dear' was taking it pretty hard. Charlie gave Boone pause. How could the legion attack Charlie without the boys there see it coming? It was a highly defensible point. It pointed to somebody leaking information, in his mind. Add that with Carla, and it had to be someone in Novac.

There was movement on the horizon. He followed it with his scope. Legion? Or oversized Radscorpion?

He never thought focus could be a bad thing, but he was wholly unprepared for the hand on his shoulder.

"Boone?"

He started forward, almost dropping his rifle off Dinky. "Goddammit. Don't sneak up on people like that!" He turned around to look at her. The woman stared back unrepentantly, bringing a cigarette to her lips and letting out a stream of smoke. "What do you want?" he grumbled. She smiled sheepishly.

"Honestly? I wanted to see what it looked like from the top of Dinky. Heard so much about it from Manny." She raised an eyebrow, and took another drag on the cigarette. "You expecting visitors?"

"Maybe I am," he growled, "but not you." He looked at her, thought for a second. "Maybe I should have been expecting you all along."

If she got his meaning, she didn't show it, if anything she looked confused, but she didn't move to leave.

"Why are you here?" He asked tiredly.

"Just meeting new people." She answered, sending out another stream of smoke.

"I think you should leave."

She cracked a smile, not really the appropriate response. "Hey now, you talk to all your friends this way?"

"I don't have any friends around here."

"I'm not from 'around here.'" She turned to leave as her comment sunk in.

"No. No, you're not, are you? Don't go just yet."

Her defenses were up, he could tell by the way she went still. Almost like she was measuring a shot.

"Now why would you want that?"

"I need someone I can trust. You're a stranger, that's a start."

He told her, the woman who seemed to enjoy breaking Legion just to kill them, everything and asked his favor. She took her sweet time about answering, and though he had no right to be, he was impatient. She done every other goddamned thing she'd been asked. Considering what she must have had to do to clear out all those ghouls in the old factory, this would be easy.

"What about your wife? I could try-"

"My wife's dead. I want the son of a bitch who sold her."

She spat on her cigarette, before pitching it off Dinky into the night below.

"Give me a day. You'll have your slaver by nightfall tomorrow."

Boone ought to have felt relief, but there was just tension, coiled tightly in his chest. He handed her his beret and told her what to do. She listened to it all mutely and stared intently on the symbol on the felt as she held it in her hands.

"I know this symbol. I know this." Her voice suddenly got small. "What is it?"

"NCR First Recon." he said as he turned his back on her.

Why wasn't she leaving? Didn't she have a job to do?

"We shouldn't be seen together until it's done." He prompted. He had the feeling she was ignoring him as she walked out, fingering the symbol on his beret.

When Boone walked down in to the early morning, several hours later. He found her chatting up Jeannie May. She didn't acknowledge him when he walked by, though Jeannie may called out something about breakfast. She taken to trying to take care of him in Carla's place. He didn't need it and didn't want it. Sleep was all he wanted and needed, and to shoot the damn bastard who'd enslaved his wife.

A sniper on edge is normally a bad thing and Boone was already unfocused. Why had she given him a damn timeline? And where the fuck was she?

Out of the corner of his field of vision he noticed somebody. Two somebodies. Two women walking out in front of the dinosaur. He could barely make out that they were talking to each other when he saw a flash of red. His beret. He moved and even he couldn't believe how fast he went. So fast that if you blinked you would have missed it by a mile.

The body falling to the ground reminded abruptly him of the legion boy, head clean gone, and he had a sudden urge to find the rest of the legion stalking Novac and complete the set. He smiled grimly. Maybe he would. The small red dot bellow was tilted back. She was looking up at him, before moving back into the town and to his doorstep.

She handed back the beret.

That's it then. How did you know?

"Jeannie May's story didn't add up's all, I did some digging and found this."

Jeannie May? That was Jeannie May?

She handed him a folded piece of paper. "Bill of sale."

He stared. "Guess I shouldn't be surprised. It's like them to keep paperwork."

He held out a small sack of caps, which she ignored. After a few moments, he put them away.

She pulled out an ancient pack of cigarettes, took out one and lit up

"What will you do now?" She asked around the streams of smoke.

He hadn't actually gotten that far.

"I don't know. I don't see any point in staying. Don't see much point in anything right now, except killing legionnaires. Maybe I'll wander. Like you."

"Good luck with that." She turned to go but stopped, tossing down her cigarette and stamping it out.

"You know, you could always take a walk with me. We wouldn't be coming back here anytime soon, I have some unfinished business of my own to take care of."

"You don't want to do that."

"Oh? And here I thought snipers worked in teams."

He surprised both of them when he chuckled. "Yeah, working on your own, you're a lot less...effective. I've been there before and paid for it." He shouldered his rifle and made for the door. Getting out of Novac wouldn't make anything better, but that didn't mean he couldn't leave all the same.

"Fine, let's get out of here..."

She nodded, shouldering her pack. He realized with some surprise that she had meant to leave town the moment she completed the task. He was grateful. It turned out Carla had the right of it after all. The less time they spent in this hell hole, the better. Still, he thought she deserved a warning.

"... But this isn't going to end well."


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's note: I've done a lot of revision to this chapter and still can't tell if I took Boone out of character or not. A big thanks to Cressida Isolde for her review. Any praise from her is high indeed considering she writes the best Courier/Boone stories on . Don't believe me? Check out "If I Didn't Care..." Anyway, here is chapter two! Please read and review! Good reviews are always food for thought. Enjoy_

_~Scarlet_

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><p><em>Someone once told me that life is really all about taking advantage, and I suppose, in the end, that's what I did. I took advantage for my own lousy benefit. I took advantage of Boone's need to run from demons with sharper claws than mine. That and the sheer magnitude of Benny's ability to be an ass. managed to take advantage of it all to run from my own ghosts. To sidetrack myself from finding out, or being found out, as long as possible.<em>

_Would things be different if I'd faced the music a little sooner?_

_Probably._

_Would I want them to be?_

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><p>Nipton wasn't supposed to take long, and she was heading the long way 'round anyway. Shaky hands and hallucinations Phade never wanted to see again caused by cazador poison had put her off taking the short way. Add the fact that the folks down at the Mojave Outpost were keen on making contact and willing to pay for it?<p>

Nipton was a no brainer.

She knew something was off the moment she set foot in the place. Something in the back of her mind screamed it and she'd gotten pretty used to listening to that voice. Kept her alive so far. Phade put away her pistol for her trusty shotgun, nothing in the world as reliable, as she headed further into the town. Nipton had a reputation for being as fast and loose as a Vegas dancing girl. Something from back before Benny scrambled her brains remembered something vague about good booze and a good time, but this place was quieter than the Goodsprings graveyard the morning after she was brought back from the dead. She wasn't but a few steps in when sounds of dust being kicked up invaded her ears. A man, gear screaming powder ganger, was gunning for her.

"Stop," she shouted, and released the safety.

He slowed, running in place.

"Who won I lottery, man! I did! Smell that air! Couldn't you drink it in like booze?" he laughed crazily throwing his head back to the hot blue mojave sky like it was first time he'd ever seen her. His expression changed quickly, to one of abject fear. "I've got to get out of here!" He shrieked, taring away into the mojave quickly. His words trailed back after him "...get out of here!"

Steeling herself, and wondering what could of possibly driven the man out of his gourd, she pressed further in to town. It was hard to say what drew the eye first, the crucifixions or the tire fire, but she noticed both right away.

Not a hallmark of a good time.

Keeping her gun up, but moving as quickly as she could, she ran up to the first wood and steel cross, body of a shirtless man splayed out on it. Leaving a man like this in the hot Mojave sun was a slow, painful death no one deserved.

"You still alive there, hon?" she asked. The man barely had energy to lift his head.

"Oh, praise...the...lord. Little sister...please...

"You hold on, I'll have you down in a jiffy." she shimmied up the cross, thanking the stars she wore leathers that day.

"No! No...please...just..." She lowered her ear to his mouth.

"Just kill me, please."

Stunned, she let go, stumbled back from the cross, and saw what she had missed. The man had been tied up for more than a day. He was perilously close to death as it was. Removing him from the cross would kill him for sure, and if she didn't...he could cook for hours out there. Hours.

"You sure?"

His sigh was all she needed to hear. She aimed her gun at his heart and pulled the trigger. The force of the blow pulled him down from the cross. She collected his body and laid it out in proper repose.

"Be at peace, brother." she whispered into his ear and covered him with scattered stones.

She pulled herself up. There were still five people strung up. She fired the cleanest shot possible for each, bodies flailing and falling to the ground in a macabre ghost dance.

She registered movement behind her and swung the gun around, only to have it bump up onto the chest of a living, breathing soul who looked ridiculous wearing a coyote on his head in this kind of heat.

A head taller than her, he looked down with a grin that could have been polite if he been a different sort of man. On him it just looked vicious.

"Well, well, who do we have here?" He said in a even, unhurried tone. Phade stood a little straighter as men and dogs moved to surround her. Now she notice the banner sitting among burning remains.

A golden bull on a red field. Caesar's Legion.

Shit. She was fucked.

"Don't worry," Coyote Head said in a voice that was in no way reassuring. "I won't have you lashed to a cross like the rest of these degenerates. It's useful you happened by."

"I don't really know if I want to be of use to the Legion. Thanks all the same." She spat.

One eyebrow lifted over wraparound shades, "You would live longer if you reconsidered that option."

"Are you forgetting the part where I'm holding a shotgun to your chest?" she cracked a fierce little smile of her own. Coyote Head wasn't impressed.

"You can't outshoot everyone here" he motioned to his compatriots, "The dogs would be on you after the first bullet."

"Maybe, but considering what you've done here. The world might be a better place for it."

"And your willing to die for that?" Coyote Head looked more amused than anything. Her finger twitched on the trigger. A mongrel snarled. After a second, Phade lowered the weapon.

"I want you to witness the fate of the town of Nipton. Memorize every detail. And then when you move on..."

"I'm moving on?" She asked scarastically.

"I want you to teach everyone you meet the lesson Caesar's Legion taught here today. Especially any NCR troops you run across."

She put her hands on her hips. Her position screamed vulnerable, but she didn't really care. The jerk in the hat was right. They had her over a barrel here. And not in the good way.

"And what lesson is that?" she ground out, trying to buy time. There had to be away to shoot everyone here that didn't equal dead. Come on, girl, think!

"Where to begin? That we are strong and they are weak? This much is known already..."

The full story of Nipton, as this 'Vulpes Inculta' told it, turned Phade's stomach. Considering the havoc she was usually wading in, that was saying something.

"You're a courier, yes? Carry the knowledge with you. Deliver it to the right people." She didn't give him the satisfaction of looking unnerved at his knowledge of her profession.

"You know, I'm beginning to think I should have just shot you. Screw the consequences," she mused and it was more than a little gratifying to see him frown. To hear the itchy trigger fingers of his troops shift.

"You want me to extoll your exploits? Really? Well, I guess that means your going to have to let me go. And I could give you my word, but I won't. Guess you boys are just going to have to wait and see what I do. Maybe I won't tell anyone; or better yet, maybe I give someone else credit. The lottery idea was...unique, after all. Could send a lot of people chasing ghosts."

"You won't do that." Both a statement and a warning.

Phade laughed at him and walked away. She expected a bullet between the shoulder blades, she really did. But when none came and she chanced a glance behind her, the Legion boys had disappeared back into the Mojave.

"I really hope that wasn't a vote of confidence," she muttered to herself.

* * *

><p>"Phade!"<p>

It took Boone shouting her name so loud they could probably hear him all the way back in Novac to pull her out of whatever place she had gone to in that head of hers. The little robot that she had programmed to follow her around beeped loudly, taking exception to his had spent the last mile or so staring grimly into the space in front of her, ignoring both man and machine. Not that he had anything to discuss with her, but as a spotter, he had to warn his partner if raiders started taking potshots at her. She didn't really bother to look, she just took out the rifle on her back and fired a one handed warning shot at them. They seemed to take it as a challenge, hooting and laser fire followed. Phade turned the fury of her full attention on them and Boone joined in. A few minutes later there were a lot of bodies in need of checking over and a lot of extra gear to be dumped into the eyebot.

Ed-e, Phade called him.

A week on the trail hadn't done either of their tempers any good. Phade had looped them back to Primm where she dropped in at the Mojave Express where he found to his surprise she was a courier of all things. A _courier _had shot a frumentarii in the head with a shotgun. She still didn't make sense, and what was stranger was that she stopped by, three days of travel out of the way, specifically to ask about someone who she didn't even seem to know.

It was odd. It was none of his business. Not knowing was killing him.

The hazy outline of Boulder City shimmered on the horizon. They had another hour tops of traveling, and six days with only a few words spoken by the campfire was beginning to get to even Boone. Still, he almost didn't believe it when the words popped out of his own mouth.

"Who were you asking about, back in Primm?"

Phade stopped in her tracks. Boone scanned the horizon thinking that she must of seen something ahead, but instead found her staring at him, mouth quirked in a half smile.

"Craig Boone, did you just say something not food or fire related? I must be keeping him out in the sun too long, Ed-e!"

The robot gave a long trill that Boone took for some kind of agreement, and Phade laughed. Maybe _she'd _been out in the sun too long.

"Figures, it's the one thing I don't want to talk about."

Well, he wasn't expecting that. Phade talked to everybody, about pretty much anything. She had talked to him a whole day straight after Novac but stopped by the time they got to Primm. She talked to almost everyone in Primm, including Primm Slim's prisoners. She talked to Ed-e mostly after she got him up and running. But this she didn't want to talk about?

She started walking again, as though the matter were closed. But Boone found he didn't want to let it lie.

"Anything to do with the man in the checkered suit?"

She waved a hand in dismissal, "Nah, that's all straightforward. Track him down, get him alone, deliver my foot so far up his ass it comes out of his mouth, get my package back, get it to the right person and collect hazard pay. Easy. The man in Primm, not so much."

"Well, who is he?"

Phade sighed. "I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"Yeah, well that bullet Ol' Checkered put in my brain had some neat side effects, one of which is that when I finally got around to waking up, I couldn't remember anything but my name and, well...even that took awhile. Guy in Primm apparently knew about the delivery. Made sure I got the one Checkered wanted. The one _he_ was suppose to take, and was real happy about it too. Jackass."

She was set up, he realized, set up and she didn't even know why. He would have asked more, but Phade's face had gone blank, locked down.

He would've of left her to her privacy at that point, but she didn't want to leave him to his.

"What is it your not telling me about what happened to your wife?"

She was looking at him sidelong, only pretending to have her sights set on the approaching skyline of Boulder City.

"You've got no right asking me that. Drop it."

That smile was back on Phade's face, but it wasn't a kind one. "You got no problem asking me things."

She was right and he instantly regretted opening his mouth. That wasn't why he was here. This was a professional relationship. Sniper. Spotter. Nothing more.

She sighed. "I just...want to get to know you better. I need to know who I have at my back."

It flew out before he could stop it. "Because I know who I have at mine?"

The barb hit it's mark painfully. "Now you listen here, Craig Boone..." She started in angrily. He cut her off.

"Look, Phade, you don't know what your asking. Please...let it go for now." He willed her to understand, and somehow, she did. The anger slipped off her face, replaced with questions that she thankfully didn't ask. And then it didn't matter, because they were standing in the Boulder City ruins.

"Well, you got to love what they've done with the place. Funny, I wasn't expecting rubble."

A NCR solider blocked their way through. Apparently, there was a situation with the Great Khans.

"Khans, you say?" Phade's eyes lit with a crazy glow. "Well, alright!"

Boone and the solider gave her twin looks of confusion.

"Manny said Ol' Checkered was traveling with Khans. Come on, Sharpshooter! We've got him!"

"Uh, Miss... I don't know if you heard me the first time. You can't go in. We have a situation."

"Yeah, yeah, hostages. I got that." The solider bristled visibly, but Phade wasn't paying any attention to that. Her eyes were fixed on the junk door to the city. "I've got business with those Khans anyway, why not let us handle negotiations?"

Boone opened his mouth to tell the man he was former First Recon. The unit's name carried a lot of weight in the NCR, but the solider gave Phade a look over, with her assorted weapons and the crazy look on her face, and decided to play the wild card. He made sure to let them know that they'd be dead before they got any backup, but she was halfway to the junk door before he finished. She waved her hand in the air in a salute and confirmation of the facts.

The Kahns at the door seemed too stunned to fire on Phade or Boone. Phade just breezed on by with a "Howdy, boys!" to the headquarters where Jessup, the head Kahn, was holed up.

"What the hell!" The Kahn went a shade whiter, "You're that courier Benny wasted. You're supposed to be dead!"

"I got better." She shrugged, hopping up to sit on what was once a counter. "Where is Ol' Che- I mean, Benny Boy? We need to have a conversation about manners. And how to properly end someone. Depending on how it goes, I might even give him a demonstration."

Jessup whistled. "And I thought Khans were tough to kill. So what happens now?"

"Where's the platinum chip?" she asked, looking at her nails more than the Khans. A brawny blonde discreetly reached under the table. Boone swung up his gun.

"Wouldn't do that if I were you."

"Caleb, fuck, what are you trying to do, get us killed?" Jessup snapped. He brought his hands up. real casual. They were both empty.

"The chip, Jessup?"

"Don't have it, Benny stole it. Right before stabbing us in the back. Probably back at the strip by now, laughing his ass off at me."

"Don't worry, he won't be doing that for long. What can you tell me about him?"

Things went surprisingly well, considering that the Khans had let Benny put a bullet in Phade's skull, and Phade had come back from the dead to set things to rights with them. Nobody died. Phade talked the Khans into letting the hostages go, and then talked the NCR into letting the Khans go. Everyone more or less went away happy. But there was still something Boone didn't get.

"You just let them leave. They left you in a shallow grave and you let them leave? You could've let NCR put them away."

"I'm a strong believer in 'Don't shoot the messenger.' Prob'ly because I am one. Khans didn't turn their guns on me, I didn't turn mine on them. That's how it works."

* * *

><p>"Boone! BOONE! You in? Or out?"<p>

Boone slammed back into his own head in time to feel his skull ring from Cass' voice. She was about an inch from his ear.

"Ah, Sharpshooter finally returns." Phade said amicably, fanning herself with her playing cards.

"Welcome back." Veronica laughed. She was trying subtly to get a peak at Cass' cards. Cass shot her a look. Pouting, she slouched back into her seat.

He looked up at the heavens. The sun was going down around Trading Post 188, stars dusting the violet sky. How long had he been sitting here?

"Out."

Cass returned to the picnic table undaunted, leaving Boone on his solitary bench.

"Ladies, I'm out too." Phade put her cards down on the dusty wood.

"We can't play five card stud with two people!" Veronica moaned.

"Play Go Fish. Or teach Ed-e to play."

He heard the strike of a match as she lit a cigarette and sauntered over. Phade sat down beside him with a hard rattle that made him feel sorry for the decaying wood.

"What you thinking about, Sharpshooter?" She asked with a half moon smile, adding smoky, slivery streamers to the glittering night sky. It was certainly a New Vegas kind of night. Boone didn't feel worthy of it.

"You're certainly taking your sweet time getting to Benny. We've been everywhere in New Vegas but The Strip."

It was true. She'd taken them off road after Boulder City, down to the Mojave Outpost and to places all over that were certainly not marked on any NCR map he'd ever seen.

"It's to lull him into a false sense of security. He'll never see me coming." She chuckled, creating a little thunderhead of smoke. "Strategy, Boone. Strategy."

He turned his head to look at her, unamused. "Phade, he thinks you're dead. He already won't see you coming."

"Yeah," she said softly, staring up at the quiet twilight. "Guess, that's true."

What was she doing? Hadn't she thought this through? An awful thought came to mind.

"You actually planning on going after any Legion? Because I didn't sign up just to help you with your personal problems."

Phade gave him a flat look, and twirled the cigarette between her fingers. "You've shot five Legion dead since leaving Novac. What do you want me to do? March up to The Fort?"

And there was another peculiarity.

"Been meaning to ask. All five of those Legion were frumentarii, so was the one you shot at Novac. You have something you want to tell me? About you and the Legion?"

Phade colored. There was definitely something she'd left out.

"I don't know. You want to tell me about your wife?"

Anger flash flooded through him and dispersed as quickly. "I told you to drop it."

She stood stretching her legs. "There's got to be some give and take here, Boone." She turned to go back to the game. "I'm just tryin' to understand. That's all."

"I don't know how it helps. She's dead." He said to the sky.

"I just want to know." Phade said truthfully, stamping out the cigarette and returning to the bench.

"She... I tracked her down. Southeast, near the river. They were selling her. Saw it through my scope. Whole place swarming with legion, hundreds of them. Bidding for things no man has a right to. I just had my rifle with me. Just me. Against all of them... so... I took the shot.

There was a nearly inaudible rustle and Boone watched an unlit cigarette roll across the ground. "God...Boone. God. I'm so sorry. Phade was frozen in horror. "Better she die than be a legion slave?"

"Yeah," He said weakly. "What they do to women... There was really no choice in what I did." He was happy for his shades. He didn't think she'd hold it against him, but he didn't want Phade to see him cry.

"It was more like... being forced to watch something you couldn't stop."

He was quiet for a moment. Let the pain in his chest throb, more words bubbling up before he could stop them. It was something that only ever happened around Phade.

"All this was only ever going to play out one way. It still is. I don't have any say. All I can do is wait for it to be done with me."

Phade frowned. "You make it sound like your wife's death was inevitable."

"It was gonna be something. If I'd never met Carla, it would've been something else. I should've never gotten close to her. I've got bad things coming to me." He looked over at her, taking in that clean looking, more honest than most face of hers. "You better keep your distance too."

It was good advice. Some that she seemed to consider. "Why do you think you've got bad things coming to you?"

"Fair is fair." The night sky was reminding him of the night he met Carla. They were so different. Carla and Phade. Phade and Carla. He almost chuckled to himself. They would have gotten along.

"I don't understand." She said slowly, reacting with caution to the sudden smile on his face.

"Better that you don't."

"Phade! Come on! We're playing poker, or I swear, I'm walking all the way back to the fucking Outpost!

"Come on," She groaned, "You're better at the game than I'm. God, If I had your poker face, Nash might believe when I say I'll quit if he doesn't give me a raise."

She wanted to pretend like they never had this conversation. Fine.

"Oh, and Boone, one last thing."

She turned and nailed him straight in the lenses with those big, blue, serious eyes of hers.

"Life isn't fair. Sometimes, you do terrible things and punishment never comes. Sometimes, the punishment is living with what you've done."

He glanced at her skeptically from over the rim of his glasses.

Yeah. What a fabulous reminder that she didn't know squat.


End file.
